Happy Christmas and New Year holidays and some Important Information.

Apart from wishing all Clients a Happy Christmas and New Year Holiday we want to bring to you attention a new Fraud that is being visited on Landlords. Please read this and consider taking action to prevent yourself becoming a victim in the New Year. As always Smartmove is looking to safeguard its Clients interests.

The UK Land Registry is reminding landlords to take steps to protect their property from being fraudulently sold or mortgaged in 2015.

It points out that you are more at risk if you rent out your property, you live overseas, the property’s empty, the property isn’t mortgaged and the property isn’t registered with the Land Registry.

Properties will be registered if they were bought or mortgaged since 1998 and anyone who is unsure can check the register. A spokesman said that if any information on the register is incorrect, such as a landlord changing contact address, these should be notified and changed.

‘You can track changes to the register or put a restriction on your title if you think you’re at risk. You can also sign up to get property alerts if someone applies to change the register of your property, for example, if they try to use your property for a mortgage,’ said a spokesman.

‘This won’t automatically block any changes to the register but will alert you when something changes so that you can take action. You can get alerts for up to 10 properties and there’s no fee,’ he explained.

‘You can stop Land Registry registering a sale or mortgage on your property unless a conveyancer or solicitor certifies the application was made by you,’ he added.

If you don’t live at the property you can fill in a request for a restriction for owners not living at the property if you own the property privately. Business owners must fill in a request for a restriction for business owners of property. Again there is no fee.

Everyone thinks it can never happen to them but the statistics prove different.